Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention relate generally to wireless network communications and, more specifically, to leveraging diverse communication links to improve communication between network subregions.
Description of the Related Art
A conventional wireless mesh network includes a plurality of nodes configured to communicate with one another across communication links. The communication links between different nodes typically provide varying levels of connectivity between those nodes depending on, for example, geographical relationships between the nodes, interference levels associated with those nodes, or other environmental and/or operational factors than affect wireless transmissions. Accordingly, some nodes may have good connectivity with one another and, thus, be capable communicating with one another with low error rates, while other nodes may have poor connectivity with one another, and, therefore, only be capable of communicating with higher error rates.
One consequence associated with the varying levels of connectivity mentioned above is that the wireless mesh network can become segmented into “pockets” of nodes that have good internal connectivity, but are not well connected to other pockets of nodes. For example, a group of nodes that reside within close proximity to one another could maintain good communication links with one another that provide a high level of connectivity. However, those nodes could be unable to maintain good communication links with geographically distant nodes in other pockets. As a general matter, although communication between nodes within a given pocket may confer high bandwidth and low error rates communications between nodes within that pocket, poor connectivity between pockets may severely limit the overall capacity of the wireless mesh network in terms of bandwidth and error rate, among other things.
As the foregoing illustrates, what is needed in the art is an effective approach for communicating data between network subregions having poor connectivity with one another.